


On Earth as it is in Heaven

by mnemosynes_tears



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Pepper Potts, Catholic Bucky Barnes, F/M, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Sorry Not Sorry, Up all night to get Bucky, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosynes_tears/pseuds/mnemosynes_tears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes was raised a good Catholic boy. </p><p>The Winter Soldier may not have been raised good, or been a boy, but he's still Catholic. Some things stay with you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Earth as it is in Heaven

HYDRA learned back in 1951 that the first thing any new agent on a local Asset Management Team needed to know was the location of the nearest Catholic Church.

 

By design, the Asset didn’t retain very much in between missions. It was removed, woken, cleaned up, given its assignment, and sent off to complete it. When it returned to the base, it was debriefed, cleaned off, wiped, and put away. But for three years after creation, the Asset disappeared for hours in between the kill shot and its return, always without leave but always returning to base. The laboratory technicians failed to find a technique that would induce it to explain its whereabouts for that missing time.

 

In late March of 1951, Karolina Janulis was leaving Mass with her grandmother when she spotted something strange near the confessionals at the back of the cathedral. Her employers had not, to her knowledge, ordered that the Apostolic Administrator be terminated; if they had, would they not have chosen a less conspicuous time than Good Friday? Depositing her grandmother by the votive candles, she headed over to where the strange man dressed in black had entered the booth, and, hoping her grandmother’s friends were not watching her spy on the confessional, slid as close as she possibly dared to the worn velvet curtain. She heard heavy breathing, and then a voice she recognized but had never truly _heard_.

 

“In the name of… the Father, the Son, and the… Holy Spirit. It has been… a long time since my last… confession.”

 

The Asset’s Lithuanian was accented with Russian, and Karolina had never heard it speak her own language before. Still. She knew.

 

“I have many sins… on my hands. I have… taken the life of another. I have been… envious of my… comrades and… disobedient to my… superior officers. I have not observed… the Sabbath day or… attended church since… my last confession.”

 

 _Kristus_ , the Asset was giving Penance as though it were a person. As though it could sin, and be absolved, and receive the Sacrament. As though it had done this before. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

The priest’s soft murmuring broke through the Asset’s recitation. It responded, and there was a moment of stillness before the its voice rose again behind the dark wood of the confessional:

 

_Deus meus, ex toto corde pænitet me omnium meorum peccatorum,_

_eaque detestor, quia peccando,_

_non solum pœnas a te iuste statutas promeritus sum,_

_sed præsertim quia offendi te—_

 

“Karolina!” scolded her grandmother. “Are you listening in to another’s Confession?”

 

“No, Grandmother,” Karolina lied, mentally adding it to her own tally of sins to be Confessed on Sunday. “I was waiting for you. Have you finished lighting candles?” Her grandmother scowled, but Karolina had not served HYDRA for ten years and learned nothing; she was hardly going to crack under pressure from an old lady, even if it was in the House of God.

 

“Yes,” the woman relented, finally, “I intend to join Živilė and Agnese to finish the quilt for the Molis’ next child. Are you going home?”

 

“I think I will stay and pray a little longer, actually,” Karolina said, putting on the most pious look she could manage. “I will ask Father Matas to get one of the altar boys to escort me home if my rosary runs longer than planned.”

 

“Very well,” her grandmother nodded. She slipped on her gloves and stole and joined the congregants straggling out the steps of the cathedral. Behind Karolina, the doors to the Confessional opened.

 

The Asset still wore its tactical uniform, but it had removed its visible weaponry to enter the church. Its metal arm, newly upgraded, gleamed with the reflections of hundreds of votive candles. The flecks of gravel on its trousers where it had been laying with its sniper rifle were the only outward indication Karolina saw that it had run away prior to debriefing, rather than being removed solely to attend Mass.

 

The only good thing about the war, Karolina reflected, was that no priest thought twice about a confession of murder when properly phrased.

 

It settled its eyes on Karolina, and she saw that it held a borrowed rosary in its flesh hand. It glanced towards the pews, then down at the beads it held, and then ghosted over to her.

 

“Retrieval?” It asked in a gravely whisper. Karolina noted that it had reverted to Russian. She calculated her angles, the possibilities, the Asset’s familiarity within her place of worship, and made an executive decision.

 

“No, Asset,” she replied. “First, you must finish your prayers.” She gestured to the rosary it still held. “Then we will return to base, and you will debrief. Do you understand?”

 

“Understood,” it confirmed, then it knelt to begin the Lord’s Prayer:

 

_“Pater noster, qui es in caelis,_

_Sanctificetur nomen Tuum._

_Adveniat regnum Tuum,_

_Fiat voluntas Tua,_

_Sicut in caelo, et in terra…”_

 

\----

 

Karolina Janulis received a promotion for her discovery. As the head of Asset Management, she revised its post-op retrieval protocols, refactored the assignment procedures to include the location of a specific church for each post-mission confession, and taught three bases worth of HYDRA operatives the prayers and behaviours necessary to blend in as Catholics. She went to Easter and Christmas Mass with the Asset for fifteen years before an enterprising assistant poured arsenic in her coffee in response to a lackluster performance review.

 

\----

 

If Steve Rogers had asked any HYDRA agent who’d worked with the Asset where he was after dropping three helicarriers into the Potomac, they probably would have had a pretty good idea. (They may not have told him, but they’d have been able to guess.) The Winter Soldier’s routine was well-established, both post-mission and on Sundays while thawed, and as long as that agent knew the location of the nearest Catholic Church they’d be able to give Captain America what he wanted.

 

The fact is, Captain America and Falcon were chasing a ghost across continents. It didn’t matter how soon after a defunct HYDRA base had been exposed or exploded – five minutes, five days, five hours – the man once known as Bucky Barnes was nowhere to be found.

 

\---

 

“You ever think maybe he doesn’t wanna be found, Cap?” Tony Stark asked one day over FaceTime. “Or maybe he just doesn’t want _you_ to find him?” Steve Rogers snarled at him and hung up.

 

\---

 

“I told you, he’s a ghost story,” reminded Black Widow when she conveniently ran into them in Prague. “You can’t catch a ghost story, Rogers.”

 

“He’s just confused,” he told her. “He doesn’t know who he is, and I’m gonna help him remember.”

 

“He’s not going to thank you for that,” she warned, and disappeared.

 

\---

 

“Y’know, maybe we should let him come to us? Just sayin’,” Falcon said one day, fifteen months into their world tour. He held up his hands at Captain America’s righteous anger. “I’m not telling you to give up on him or anything. I’m just saying, maybe the dude’s got issues that he’s working out alone. Maybe he wants to come to terms with everything on his own, in his head, before he sees you again.”

 

“…to the end of the line,” muttered Steve at the motel floor, wishing desperately that he couldn’t hear what the couple next door was up to.

 

“Yeah, I know, you’re blood brothers, bonded besties and shit.” Falcon rolled his eyes. “But part of being family is knowing when you’ve gotta let someone do their own thing. Sometimes all you can do is be there for them. And if they decide they want to come home, be that home for them.”

 

“Sometimes you’re really insightful, Sam,” Steve said, “and sometimes you’re a asshole. Do you get this shit outta self-help books?”

 

“Tumblr memes,” Sam grinned.

 

\---

 

In mid-March of 2016, Virginia Potts was leaving Mass with her parents and bodyguards when she spotted something strange near the confessionals in the back of the cathedral. Shooing her entourage outside, she meandered over to the booths, trying very hard not to look like she was not actually eavesdropping on someone else’s private conversation with a priest. She could hear the rote cadence of a lifelong Catholic begin his Confession, a short pause, and then the gravely voice within was stuttering.

 

The other parishioners slowly emptied out onto the streets of New York, leaving Pepper Potts to stare blankly at the stained glass windows as her mind whirled. Did Steve— did Tony— did anyone—? Her fingers tapped out a short message and hit “send” without conscious effort. The response was immediate.

 

_Why?_

 

Before she could think up a response, her StarkPhone vibrated again.

 

_Stupid questioon, sorry_

_If it’s you there’s always a good reason_

 

She smiled.

 

_Last recorded sighting was 10 days ago, KC MO_

_Steve &Sam got back this morningg_

 

The voices within the booth were louder than usual. The man-who-might-be-the-Winter-Soldier was… crying? That wasn’t unusual – this was New York, after all – but it seemed awfully unlikely that an assassin whose very name implied “cold-blooded” would be sobbing out a confession in the middle of St. Patrick’s. She typed back “ _thanks_ ” and ignored Tony’s reply of “ _..????!1?”_.

 

Pepper heard the cadence of the Act of Contrition start when her phone began dancing furiously. Before she had time to unlock her home screen, Tony had already sent five messages, and more kept coming.

 

_WS sighting in NYC as of today AM_

_HYDRA base in Navy Yard exposed, 3 dd 47 injured_

_J says WS seen on traffic cams heading to Manhattan afterward_

_Did you see him_

_Pep are u ok_

_u still at church_

_GET OUT_

_IT’S NOT SAFE_

 

Pepper looked up from her wildly vibrating phone and froze. Before her stood the man she’d been seeing in charcoal drawings and CCTV footage around the Tower for over a year. She could see no signs of a fight earlier, especially not one with fifty casualties. He had no visible weaponry except his scuffed left arm, which reflected the votive candles behind him. Around his right hand he clutched the worn rosary beads belonging to the Church.

 

_I’M COMING_

 

He stared at Pepper and glanced over at the pews, and then down at the beads he held, and moved towards her.

 

_JUST HANG ON PEP_

 

“Are you here to take me home?” he said. His voice belonged to Peter Pan’s Lost Boys. Pepper felt her heart crack a little and slipped her phone back into her purse.

 

“Do you want to come home?” She asked. His face contorted.

 

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Are you here to take me home?”

 

_ASSEMBLING TO YOUR LOC_

 

“Only if you want to come home,” she replied again. “Do you want to?”

 

“I… don’t get to choose,” he told her, like she had forgotten, and her heart cracked a little more.

 

“Now you do,” she decreed. The man who might be the Winter Soldier and who might be Bucky Barnes, and who might be both and might be neither cocked his head at her. Then he nodded once.

 

_30 SEC INCOMING_

 

“Now I do,” he agreed. He brought his hand up to show her the rosary still wrapped around his fingers. “My Penance. I have to… finish. My prayers.”

 

“Okay,” Pepper nodded. “Would you like me to, ah, wait for you? Here? Or outside?”

 

“Here,” he half-asked, and turned to kneel at a pew. She knelt next to him and bowed her own head, and began the Our Father in English as he recited the Latin:

 

_“Our Father, who art in Heaven,_

_Hallowed be Thy name…”_

**Author's Note:**

> For two years I've thought this needed another chapter to be complete. I've finally realized it actually doesn't. Not everything needs to come nicely gift wrapped with a happily ever after resolution for everyone. I may manage the "Bucky leaves the church with Pepper" bit later, but I don't want to feel beholden to a multichapter format when it's perfectly good the way it is. 
> 
> I can't apologize for figuring out that messy endings are okay, but I'm sorry if anyone was actually waiting for chapter 2 with bated breath.


End file.
